”Super-awesome. Super-excited.” How better for Zack Snyder (Watchmen) to react to the news that he’s the next Superman director? Snyder, whose latest movie, the animated Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, is now in theaters, will helm the reboot, to be produced by The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan and written by Batman Begins scribe David S. Goyer. The last time the DC Comics mainstay was on the big screen was 2006’s Superman Returns, starring Brandon Routh and directed by X-Men’s Bryan Singer.

With no start date and no cast, it’s too early for Snyder to say what he’ll do with the Man of Steel. But he does reveal that the character is ripe for a reinterpretation á la Batman Begins. ”I think there’s a real opportunity here,” he says. ”Think of where Batman was when [Nolan] took that on earlier in the decade. I think Superman is in a very similar place, in terms of being available and in terms of his relationship to where the culture was at that time.” Count us as…super-excited.